Venezuela: release Eduardo Torres and cease persecution of defenders!

Read the joint letter below:

The undersigned organisations express our deep concern regarding the case of Eduardo Torres, a prominent human rights defender and member of the legal team of the NGO Venezuelan Education-Action Program on Human Rights (PROVEA). We strongly condemn his enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, and the lack of due process in his case. Torres went missing on 9 May after attending a meeting in downtown Caracas. After leaving the meeting, he called his wife to inform her he was heading home, but he never arrived.

Between 10 and 11 May, Torres’s wife, Emiselys Núñez, accompanied by PROVEA members, visited several detention centres in Caracas, including the headquarters of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN), known as El Helicoide, and the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence. However, authorities denied his detention, and provided no information about his whereabouts. After 48 hours following his disappearance, his family and colleagues went to the Palace of Justice to file a Habeas Corpus petition, but the authorities of the Caracas Criminal Judicial Circuit refused to receive it, offering no further explanation. The petition was finally accepted on 12 May by the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court.

On 13 May, after 96 hours following his disappearance and following a public statement by PROVEA’s director, Oscar Murillo —supported by a declaration from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk —the Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, announced on Instagram that Torres was in State custody. However, he failed to specify where he was being held or before which judicial authority he was presented. Saab linked Torres to an alleged conspiracy to incite violence during the 25 May parliamentary and regional elections and claimed he was charged with conspiracy, terrorism, treason, and criminal association, although there is no formal written notification of these charges. In the same post, the attorney general asserted that Torres had been presented with full procedural guarantees and respect for his right to defence. The message also included attacks and direct threats against PROVEA’s director for denouncing the defender’s disappearance.

Contrary to the attorney general’s statements, it has been confirmed that the legal process has lacked all transparency and timely access to information for his family and trusted lawyers. His post omitted critical details about the detention and confirmed the complete absence of contact with Torres’ close circle, despite numerous attempts to determine his whereabouts. After several days of disappearance, on 17 May, some officials finally admitted that Torres was being held at El Helicoide, but to this date, neither his family nor his trusted lawyers have had any contact with him, and they have not been able to verify his detention conditions or health status. It is widely known that detainees at El Helicoide are often held in conditions incompatible with human dignity and that jeopardise their personal integrity. The family has only been able to contact the public defender assigned to his case, who reported that Torres was under a visitation ban, in violation of his right to due process, communication, and legal defence.

This case takes place in a post-electoral context marked by an alarming increase in repression since 2024, evidenced by enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, criminalisation, and other attacks against human rights defenders by State agents. The wave of repression during the week of the 25 May elections resulted, according to official figures, in over 70 people being arbitrarily detained, most of them subjected to enforced disappearance. Particularly notable is the detention of lawyer and women’s rights defender Naomi Arnaudez.

On Wednesday 28 May, the Minister of Interior, Justice, and Peace launched another attack on four local NGOs, including Eduardo Torres from PROVEA and representatives from Foro Penal, Maracaibo Posible, and Médicos Unidos, criminalising these organisations by linking them to alleged terrorist activities. This constitutes a clear sign of the aggressive harassment of human rights work and an attempt to discredit and restrict it.

The cases of Eduardo Torres and Naomi Arnaudez add to the list of other human rights defenders imprisoned for political reasons, such as Rocío San Miguel, Javier Tarazona, Kennedy Tejeda, and Carlos Julio Rojas, as well as Carlos Correa, who was released in January of this year after having been forcibly disappeared that same month. These cases reflect a systematic pattern of persecution and criminalisation of those who independently monitor, document, and report on the critical human rights situation in the country. Eduardo Torres and members of PROVEA, like most imprisoned defenders, are beneficiaries of precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

Amid recent threats and harassment against the director and other PROVEA members, we reaffirm our solidarity and support for their outstanding work over more than 30 years in denouncing serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity, and in accompanying victims in their pursuit of truth and justice.

In light of these events, we remind Venezuelan authorities that enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and imprisonment, torture, and other human rights violations committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population—in pursuit of a State policy aimed at silencing, discouraging, and suppressing dissenting voices—amount to crimes against humanity, as reiterated by various international human rights protection mechanisms in response to the situation in Venezuela.

Authorities must ensure that human rights defenders are able to carry out their work freely and safely, without fear of harassment, retaliation, or imprisonment.

Finally, given the gravity of this case, we call on national and international authorities, multilateral organisations, diplomatic missions, and other stakeholders with influence to amplify these messages and demand the immediate release of Eduardo Torres and all other human rights defenders imprisoned for political reasons.

Signatories: 

1. Amnesty International
2. Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL)
3. CIVICUS Global Alliance
4. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
5. Foundation for Due Process (DPLF)
6. Freedom House
7. Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
8. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
9. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
10. Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)
11. World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders